Ch.80Chapter 14. Chaos (3)

Iris had never thought that fighting was a good thing.

But it would be a lie to say she didn’t enjoy it.

She was a Magical Girl, and while she thought she fought for justice, it would be a lie to say she didn’t find it exhilarating.

After all, she was a Magical Girl. The Combatants were no match for her. No matter what new ideas the executives came up with, the Magical Girls overcame them too easily without faltering.

That’s why that Combatant who kept coming at her without giving up was a thorn in her side.

The best way to recognize that Combatant… there were physical characteristics, but also something about her attitude.

Always with a somewhat carefree demeanor, that Combatant from the evil organization would try to outsmart Iris whenever they met, determined to defeat her somehow.

“…”

To be honest, that annoyance was also somewhat enjoyable.

She was the only one who would challenge her instead of just running away. While irritating, there was also a strange sense of welcome.

“Victory” against other Combatants meant the end of the fight.

After shooting a few times and driving away the Combatants at the front, that fight was over. There was no reason to chase after them to win.

But the battle with that Combatant—Jeong Jieun—was slightly different.

Iris had defined victory as when the opponent gave up.

Her arrogance came from there. Confident that she wouldn’t lose in a fight, she simply waited for the opponent to give up and quit.

Perhaps that’s why.

When Iris lost to Jeong Jieun in battle. When she ultimately lost that researcher. She was that much more shocked.

…And when she later learned about that Combatant’s situation.

Perhaps at some point, Iris had started to see their fights as a game.

While her opponent was fighting with all her might, bones breaking throughout her body, Iris was merely feeling a strange sense of rivalry.

That realization was a bit chilling.

That was why Iris remained in this place.

However, while she had a reason, she had no goal.

How could she reach that unknown goal?

For Jeong Jieun to feel happiness, to live a hopeful life?

That was too vague a concept for someone who had aimed to crush all those things. Above all, that didn’t seem to be Jieun’s goal.

She claimed revenge was her goal, but she didn’t think about what would come after revenge.

Simply not giving up and continuing to live in this situation—that was Hayun’s goal.

It was a strange thing.

Iris knew that Jieun’s circuit operated on emotions different from the Hope Circuit. And those emotions were certainly not bright, at least not hopeful.

Yet Jieun’s struggle to move forward without giving up seemed like…

It looked exactly like hope itself.

*

“This is… excellent.”

As I muttered that, Cherry straightened her shoulders with a proud expression.

I unconsciously patted Cherry’s head, but when I noticed Hayun staring at my hand, I quickly withdrew it.

Why has she been acting like this lately?

Is it that? Does my behavior seem too much like racial discrimination? I suppose if I call someone older than me “cute” just because they’re a bit shorter, especially when that shortness is related to their race, it might seem like discrimination.

Given Hayun’s righteous personality, it’s understandable she might think that way.

Should I be more careful?

This constant awareness is endless. Until just recently, I was pushing everything away thinking it was all over, but after seeing Hayun risk her life to save me, I can’t even be petty anymore.

And at the same time, I don’t want to appear bad to her.

Lately, it’s been hard to fall asleep at night. With Hayun right beside me, I keep thinking about the things I said and did to her since coming here, making me want to kick my sleeping bag.

Since Hayun is under the same cover, I can’t actually do that.

…Anyway, back to the point.

Cherry hadn’t come here unprepared.

Whether she knew this would happen or intended to make it happen, she had brought a projector-like function built into her translation device—the ribbon around her neck.

It didn’t seem to have lenses or a minimum focal distance like the projectors I knew, but the result was similar.

And what the projector showed me was a map of Seoul.

It doesn’t have navigation features. It just shows the map itself. However, the map contained a lot of information.

“…”

Come to think of it, I’d never been to the chairman’s house before, so how was I able to get to the airspace above it?

My phone was obviously kept turned off. Connecting to the internet could reveal our location. I could turn on the phone without internet or GPS functions, but what high school girl would keep an offline map of Seoul?

Besides, more important than a map would be the appearance of the chairman’s house.

Not just the chairman’s house. The same goes for how we got here. I wanted ‘somewhere no one could find me,’ and that’s what happened—but normally, if you just move randomly, you’d end up in some random place on Earth.

That place might not even be a city.

Is this also because of “magic”? Because I simply thought it would “work”?

“Hmph.”

James made that sound when he saw Cherry’s proud expression.

“Isn’t a map irrelevant? You could move based on description alone without knowing the exact location.”

“Is this your first time guiding a Magical Girl?”

Cherry said to James with her nose slightly raised.

“Well, that’s why you kept losing fights.”

“…I’ve won before.”

“Just once.”

Considering the consequences of that one victory, it couldn’t be called a small battle, but I kept quiet, not wanting to take sides and prolong the conversation.

“Look, there’s a common misconception. People think imagination is stronger when you know less. In reality, the more information you have, the more concrete your abilities become.”

“…”

“You look skeptical, but think about what Jieun has accomplished so far. Do you have rocket science in your head?”

“No.”

“Right? Yet you handle that hammer with ease. That kind of imagination at least requires knowing that ‘rockets exist.'”

Does it… work that way?

“The gap between common sense and common sense. That’s what we call imagination. For imagination to be concrete, it’s better to have more common sense. After all, magic inevitably collides with reality. As long as ‘reality’ exists, you can’t make it non-existent, and to use that gap, you need to know more, right?”

She sounds just like a school teacher.

No, more like the teachers at the orphanage.

I looked at the other Magical Girls. They were nodding with slightly surprised expressions.

As if they thought James and I knew this and were using it.

“No matter how much you learn, the human mind has limits, right? Even professors who have systematically studied a field often think ‘this is how it will be’ rather than ‘I wonder how it will turn out’ when conducting scientific experiments. In magic, that ‘this is how it will be’ thought is the core.”

I see.

Technology has its limits. As far as I know, even aliens with great technology haven’t discovered the cause of physical phenomena. Rather, because they use magic, they can’t delve deeper.

That’s why Earth is supposedly the best in theoretical physics. Most aliens seem to think, ‘Is that even necessary?’

Well, in the Ha●ry Potter series, wizards greatly look down on muggles.

“So, a map like this is helpful, right? It’s easier to think with, better for planning.”

“What’s the use of planning when we can go back and forth instantly through a black hole? We just need to decide which places to destroy in our guerrilla tactics.”

Cherry was momentarily speechless at James’s words.

But I sympathized with Cherry.

If I… somehow couldn’t use the black hole, a ‘map’ would certainly be very useful information. Being able to find the shortest route when needing to escape quickly is valuable.

Of course, the people here don’t know yet that my power is weakening. Most don’t even know how the circuit works.

I glanced at Hayun.

When our eyes met, Hayun smiled at me, and I quickly lowered my gaze.

…Why, after I treated her so harshly.

Biting my lip slightly, I looked at the map.

“So, where should we go next?”

“According to the radio,”

James quickly spoke up, as if not wanting to lose to Cherry.

“Security has been strengthened around the company building. Police patrols have increased, and the chairman has requested protection…”

James moved his hand over the ground. It was like the gesture of zooming in on a map on a smartphone.

The projector’s screen zoomed in and even changed to three-dimensional. It was like the feature in some navigation systems that show building models in 3D.

The building seems to be in Yeouido. I might not be confident in drawing the shape of every district in Seoul, but I at least know what Yeouido, attached to the Han River, looks like.

“…It seems power has been reinforced in this building.”

“A department store?”

“Not anymore. It’s a research institute.”

It was a large department store in the world I used to live in. I hadn’t thought about visiting it here. I didn’t have a reason to go to Yeouido while living here anyway.

“A research institute in the heart of Seoul? They research here?”

“Well, it’s a bit different from the research conducted at the complex. In fact, both places research circuits, but it’s an effort to get better results by having departments compete within the company.”

I guess, they’re not making it to sell outside right now.

“By the way, the circuits used by Combatants are produced at the complex. The circuits there have much better productivity.”

“So.”

I asked James.

“What does this mean? Are they just worried about the research institute being attacked? Or is the chairman there?”

“They probably want us to imagine both. Or at least one of them.”

“So, there’s nothing important left in there?”

“If they’re thinking, that’s likely the case. They wouldn’t leave anything behind while deliberately inviting an attack. Oh, by the way, while Combatant circuits are made at the complex, the circuit you use was made at this research institute. Honestly, it’s not cost-effective to sell. It’s a complex and expensive circuit with hardly anyone who can use it properly.”

“So, the place you worked at is being purged.”

“…”

James remained silent for a while at my words.

“That’s probably why they had to use the circuit as a bomb. Maybe they ‘couldn’t make it any other way.'”

“Noir Corporation is in trouble if their entire technological capability collapses just because one person left.”

Cherry said, as if taunting.

“Isn’t your side also in trouble because you left? There might be beings like you in other countries, but given the news that came out, your existence wasn’t so insignificant.”

“…”

This time, Cherry was at a loss for words.

“I’m going back.”

“When? When the Federation stops experimenting on girls? Or when the precarious alliance with Noir Corporation completely breaks down?”

“…”

Cherry’s ears drooped. Her dejected appearance was pitiful.

“Anyway.”

I intervened between the two.

“What should we do? Attack this place or not?”

“Let’s pretend to fall for it for now. They’re probably doing this deliberately. They want me to be provoked.”

“So we keep falling for it until they bring enough forces to capture us?”

“Isn’t that the plan we initially made?”

I smiled at James, who looked up at me as if asking if I’d forgotten.

He seemed already irritated by Cherry scratching beside him, and my expression seemed to annoy him more.

“…”

In reality, I was burning with anxiety.

Isn’t that right?

If the police have been reinforced and they’ve increased forces to catch us.

Can I fight properly if I go? What if I just hold the kids back and can’t even escape properly?

Even as I thought this, my circuit wasn’t spinning as strongly as before.

Hayun… was apparently a much brighter hope for me than I thought.

Damn it.

*

We rested for another day while monitoring the situation.

The radio still reported that security at that place had been strengthened. Even that the chairman was coming and going.

There’s no way to verify if that information is true. They might have just leaked that information, or the chairman might have gone in and quickly left.

Still, that place became our target.

James’s argument was that since it was so obvious, we should pretend to fall for it once more, and the other kids and Cherry agreed.

A research institute where James conducted his research. According to James, it was probably closed and all important information was removed at the time of the assassination attempt on him.

“…But the researcher was actually at the complex.”

“At that time, both the complex and the Yeouido research institute were under the previous chairman. We had no intention of showing our technology to that researcher anyway.”

I guess it makes sense that the arrangements were a bit confusing, since they never thought I would succeed in the first place.

…It was like a play between the Federation and the company from the beginning. Even during the previous chairman’s time, the company and the Federation were in ‘opposition.’ They just kept scratching each other while watching each other’s moves, not crossing the line.

The current chairman… was disrupting that balance.

According to James, it was because he was “blinded by immediate benefits.”

Though the “non-immediate benefits” James talks about seem too far away.

The attack is tomorrow.

It might be a bit dangerous if there are Kaijin swarming inside.

Even when I was full of despair, I couldn’t easily defeat those armored Kaijin. If I retire quickly, the other kids might be in danger too.

Hayun might be in danger.

“Jieun.”

I had come out saying I was going for a walk again, and as I was looking up at the sky, mulling over the situation, Hayun approached and called out to me.

My circuit, which had been spinning a little, stopped vibrating again the moment Hayun spoke to me.

“…”

I silently turned around.

I could see Hayun. Even in this dim and gloomy place, wearing dirty clothes with frayed hems, Hayun was still beautiful.

“Are you worried?”

There is a way to spin the Despair Circuit here.

Be ruthlessly cold to Hayun.

Almost to the point of severing our relationship.

But I hesitated.

What if I cut it off and still can’t spin the circuit properly? What if instead of despair, I just give up?

Even if despair ultimately leads to giving up, I didn’t want that outcome.

“…Yeah.”

Of all the answers swirling in my head, the only one that came out of my mouth was that short response.

“Don’t worry too much.”

Hayun said as she approached.

“You’ve done well so far.”

Hearing those words makes my heart sink.

Not sink into despair, but feel reassured.

Clearly, before coming here, these were the words I used to say to Hayun. When Hayun was anxious, I would calm her down.

When did it become like this?

Slowly approaching, Hayun reached out and took my hand.

“I’ll help you.”

“…”

The circuit was quiet.

“So, let’s work hard together.”

“…”

I stammered for a long time without answering.

I should say something hurtful now. That way, Hayun might not be in danger tomorrow.

Yes, if Hayun can’t escape alone.

If she gets caught.

…What would the Federation do then? They were humans who wanted to take me for some kind of experiment, so they might do terrible things to Hayun too.

“…”

But, in the end.

“Okay.”

That was the only answer I could give Hayun.

Because my mind was too complicated.

Because my heart was too quiet.

Perhaps because the hope I felt after so long was simply too good.

As if addicted, I couldn’t escape from it.

Whether this could be called salvation. Whether it could truly be called hope, I have no idea.

“Someday, we should go back together.”

“…Yeah.”

At least when answering Hayun’s final words, the circuit on my left wrist trembled slightly.